The ongoing revival of Hammer Horror has got to be encouraged, even if the films (Let Me In, The Resident) are middling so far. David Keating’s Irish folk chiller is another step forward, with a nifty idea and script.

It’s about a couple (Aidan Gillen, Eva Birthistle) who move to the countryside after their daughter is mauled to death by a dog. A pagan rite gives them the opportunity to revive her for three days, but they can’t leave, and the local villagers, led by Timothy Spall’s tweedy landowner, think there’s something wrong with the resurrected child.

The plot has vague similarities to Hammer efforts of yore and very specific ones to Pet Sematary, the Stephen King novel filmed by Mary Lambert in 1989. What holds it back from being as scary or memorable as it should be is the flat, slack, bog-standard aesthetic.

Even (or even especially) on a shoestring, the images need to be better-chosen to jangle and resonate: the film’s reasonably effective, but never heightens its impact beyond what’s on the page.